Elevate Yourself
Sophie Bell, Wood Street Mission
Having worked in the charity sector for over 15 years, Sophie has been the fundraiser for six years at Wood Street Mission, a local charity supporting families in Manchester and Salford struggling on a low income.
Elevate Yourself:
The fact my job is focused on leveraging support to help local children and their families is the motivation for me. Knowing that what I do each day will make a positive difference to someone who is having a really difficult time means you want to do your very best, for them. I’m lucky that I love my job and finding something that you love to do is the ultimate goal.
Elevate Your Business:
It might sound old fashioned and email, Zoom, Teams etc are all of course great tools at the right time, but pick up the phone. This year I’ve proactively made more phone calls. That one on one chat has developed my relationships with our supporters more than email ever could and produced some great results. They know more about us, who and how we’re helping and how they can help. We know more about them and how they would like to get involved, and why.
Elevate Greater Manchester:
Greater Manchester really showed what it is made of at Christmas, in the most wonderful way. We weren’t sure whether our Christmas Appeal 2020 – for new toys for the children we support, a project we have run for 150 years – would happen. At one point we didn’t even have a venue to run the project from. But the community stepped in, pledged their support and engaged their networks to help us. Great Northern donated us their fantastic venue and Lucy Noone Blake at Pear mobilised her network massively to support the Appeal including putting us in touch with the fabulous Elevate GM! Katie and Ilona in turn introduced us to new supporters we wouldn’t have met otherwise and created the Elevate Elves initiative to rally support. Thanks to all our supporters across GM pulling together nearly 4,000 children had toys and gifts to open on Christmas Day. We can’t thank everyone enough who got involved to help save Christmas for so many families. We hope those connections continue to develop in 2021.
About Wood Street Mission
Wood Street Mission is a charity supporting families in Manchester and Salford who struggle on a low income to make ends meet, and who have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. The charity aims to alleviate the impact of poverty on children by providing practical items to help meet children’s day to day needs. They also run projects focused on reading and education to help improve children’s life chances. All their services are free for families to access on referral.
They are currently providing a Crisis Service for families in need of emergency support with children’s clothing, bedding, towels, toiletries, baby equipment, toys and books.
If you would like to know more about Wood Street Mission please visit www.woodstreetmission.org.uk, follow them on Facebook or Twitter, or contact Sophie by email
